


Coarse

by irrelevant



Category: DCU, DCU - Comicverse
Genre: Bruce's Issues Are Legion, Jaybird, M/M, Pre-Crisis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-30
Updated: 2011-01-30
Packaged: 2017-10-15 05:49:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/157663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irrelevant/pseuds/irrelevant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Showers never go the way they're supposed to in Batland.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coarse

**Author's Note:**

> The decision to dye Pre-Crisis Jason’s hair was his own. Like Tim and Carrie after him, he initially stole the suit and Robin’s persona without Bruce’s permission. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Morrison.

He’s soaped up and wet by the time you follow the yellow green red trail pointing the way into the showers.

“I assigned you a locker for a reason,” you say as you strip off the cowl, tossing it into your own locker. “Cleanliness isn’t applicable to hygiene alone.”

He laughs, turning unerringly toward your voice without opening his eyes. He’s scrubbing stripping agent into his hair and the soapy, muddy-looking residue is dripping down his face and shoulders. “I know,” he says. “I’ll do it as soon as I get out, promise! I just wanted to—”

His voice trails off but his expression is as clear as words would be. He wanted to wash the past month off of him as quickly as possible, a feeling you can’t help but share. You peel off your leggings and toss them and your uniform shirt on top of his tunic – it all needs to be cleaned and there’s no reason to make Alfred go hunting through the lockers – and step into the shower.

The tile is slipperier than usual. You avoid the obvious patches of slick and reach past Jason for the controls, your hand brushing against his shoulder. “Is that why you’re doing this?” You tug at a lock of his hair and he yelps, opening his eyes.

“Ow, Bruce!” He sticks his head under the water, rinsing his face then pulling back to glare at you out of soap-stung eyes. “Why’d you hafta go and do that? Now I’ve got to start all over again.”

You laugh quietly, somewhat surprised you still have the ability. You lost it for a while after Dick left for New York, but Jason’s given it back to you. He’s showed you how to laugh with him and now you learn how to laugh at him while he frowns at you, his eyes cautious slits of blue. You wipe a stray streak of dye off his cheek with your thumb and say, “Turn around. I’ll finish it for you.”

It gets you another narrow, suspicious glare, but he’s already giving you his back. You wonder, not for the first time, what you’ve done to earn such complete trust. Not even Dick was so willing to surrender his person into your hands.

Jay arches into your hands like a cat with an itch that needs scratching. He butts his head against your chest, marking you with diluted dye, pushing into the push of your fingers through his hair. “Mmm,” he says. “‘S good.”

It takes everything in you not to pull him in hard and touch him everywhere you never let yourself. “Good to know,” you say, keeping your tone light and your hands where they belong. “But that’s not the point. Close your eyes and duck your head.”

He obeys, bending forward into the stream of water, and you keep running your hands through his hair, sluicing the last of the suds and two kinds of dye out of his hair and off of his skin. You lean back, let the light hit him, and it’s finally, after two years, the right color. The same color it was the first time you saw him.

“I should have just left it in,” he gasps, flinging his head back out of the water. “Already put more black on. But—”

“I know,” you say. And you do. One night posing as Malone’s pretty blond rent boy would have been too much. Nearly a month and you’re going to have a hefty water bill to show for it. “We caught them,” you tell him. “They’ll never hurt anyone again.”

His head tilts back, resting against your shoulder. His lashes lift and he looks up at you, and you see the children on that stage reflected in his eyes. “They won’t,” he says, and he sighs, and he looks, he _is_ too tired for his age. “But somebody else will.”

There was very little left of his innocence after he saw his parents’ bodies. Even less after this month. You wish, fiercely, to preserve the small amount remaining, but you know better than anyone how pointless it would be to try. “Jay,” you start to say, but his head moves against you, a tiny negation.

“I’m okay,” he says, and pushes away from you. The mischievous spark is dulled but there when he looks back up. “Better catch some of the hot before it runs out.”

You shake your head and reach for the soap – there’s not much chance of running out of hot water even down here – and you see him glance at his locker. He runs a hand through his hair and frowns at the floor.

“I really need to get this done tonight. Would you—?”

“No.” Too harsh. You know as soon as it’s out of your mouth, but you can’t take it back. Can’t stop the wide startled flight of his eyes back up to your face. You can only try to gentle your tone and hope he won't misinterpret your meaning. “Leave it as is,” you say, and his eyes widen even further.

“But Robin,” he says. “Don’t you—”

You’re already shaking your head. “I would never have asked that of you,” you tell him as you finish soaping yourself and lean into the water. “Perhaps this… episode is not without an upside.”

Out of the corner of your eye you see him swallow, his throat bobbing. You see his hands clench and let go. “Bruce.” His voice is smaller than you’ve ever heard it. “What if I—what if somebody realizes?”

“They won’t,” you say curtly, and there’s no reason for you to be so sure aside from your own stubborn wishes. Careless _and_ reckless. You turn fully to face him, confronting the top of his bent head. “We’ll lighten the color a little at a time,” you say. “Work up to strawberry blond.” You ruffle the hair in question, smiling as he jerks indignantly away.

“It’s _red_ , jeeze!” His expression is caught somewhere between outraged teen and mortified child, and nothing is better guaranteed to remind you why you need to put more room between you.

Ducking back into the spray, you finish rinsing and shut the valve off. “At any rate, we’ll leave it as is for tonight.”

He frowns at that, but he follows you into the locker bay without protest, catching the towel you throw him with the ease of long practice. You wrap one around your hips, take another for drying. Your skin takes little time and then you deal with your hair: Jason is whistling behind you, rattling around in his locker. You drop the towel and turn around.

His back is to you and he’s pulling a pair of worn sweats up over his hips. His hair is still wet, dripping down the back of his green t-shirt. “Hold still,” you say as you reach for his discarded towel.

“Aw jeeze, Bruce, I’m not five.” His voice comes muffled from under the towel you just draped over his head.

“Start acting like it,” you say, ruffling him dry. “Maybe I’ll believe you. There.” His face emerges, his cheeks flushed as red as his messy but non-dripping hair. You tap his lower lip, protruding just enough to be noticeable. “That isn’t helping.”

For a moment mutiny lingers within the event horizons of his pupils. Then he snorts something like a laugh and grins at you. And he is rumpled and damp, fifteen and irritable with it and you, and it doesn’t matter in the slightest. Your fingers are stiff with want of skin and your breath catches in your throat because he is still the most beautiful thing you have ever seen. Will ever see.

Your hand lifts; you can’t stop it. It brushes the hair off his forehead and lingers, testing remembered texture.

As thick as Dick’s but softer: it used to be before the dye wore away some of its resilience. It’s wrong and you’re going to tell him, but Jay makes a small, low noise and you jerk your hand away and look at him, stricken.

He looks back, his eyes huge. His mouth shapes your name and you close yours to keep in all the useless things you could say.

“Bruce,” he says again, pushing the sound out, pushing toward you through the weight and drag between you to lay his hand in the center of your chest. Giving you the skin you thought you wanted, and even now, in the middle of the mess you’ve made, it’s still not enough.

His hand moves. Up, calluses tracing your collar bone, your jaw. His thumb grazes the corner of your mouth.

You should call him Robin. Send him to do his homework, let Alfred feed him, make him go to bed _by himself_. You say, “Jay,” and he sighs, his fingerprint dragging at your lower lip. Dragging you down to him.

You bend with the pull and his other hand reaches up, curves around the back of your neck. The next time he says your name, you taste it.


End file.
